Stjernenatt, 1901

CommentaryEdvard Munch’s work deals with the risk to human existence between birth and death, love and loneliness. With his direct, psychologically charged visual language, he became a pioneer of modern painting, greatly influencing German Expressionism. Munch especially used lines to reorder the pictorial space in reducing the contours of the motif to simple forms of almost magical intensity. Apart from his painting of figures, Munch also painted landscapes throughout his life. Especially impressive are the views of the area around Nordstrand, south of Oslo, made around 1900. In these paintings, people are rarely present. Here and there the outlines of trees appear to suggest human forms or the dark spots in the white of the snow recall eye sockets. The paintings thus seem full of human life without destroying their landscape form: His suggestive depiction of the landscape transforms it into a mirror of feelings that the viewer has about nature.

Edvard Munch’s work deals with the risk to human existence between birth and death, love and loneliness. With his direct, psychologically charged visual language, he became a pioneer of modern painting, greatly influencing German Expressionism. Munch especially used lines to reorder the pictorial space in reducing the contours of the motif to simple forms of almost magical intensity. Apart from his painting of figures, Munch also painted landscapes throughout his life. Especially impressive are the views of the area around Nordstrand, south of Oslo, made around 1900. In these paintings, people are rarely present. Here and there the outlines of trees appear to suggest human forms or the dark spots in the white of the snow recall eye sockets. The paintings thus seem full of human life without destroying their landscape form: His suggestive depiction of the landscape transforms it into a mirror of feelings that the viewer has about nature.